Digging Into Datsun Details

Update by Tim Suddard to the Datsun 240Z project car
Sep 29, 2008

You can see the break in the shift lever in this photo. We added a small wedge of metal both above and below the break.

The finished repair. We employed an old welding trick to keep things cool: We wrapped some wet paper towels (we used blue ones) around the chrome handle and the plastic bushing at the end of the shift lever.

This is what our Noltec bushings looked like after less than 1000 miles of driving. We went back to stock control arm bushings.

Thanks to a little more tuning, the car now runs really well and pulls strongly.

We have been (hopefully) perfecting our Datsun 240Z. During the last year, we have been slowly sorting a few things and breaking in our new engine. Thanks to a little more tuning, the car now runs really well and pulls strongly.

We replaced a noisy, used limited-slip differential with a new Nissan Motorsports unit. After blueprinting this diff, it has run quietly. Plus, it’s been effective in helping our newly powered Z come out of the corners better. John Williams helped us sort out this differential.

As for the rear control arm bushings, we ended up going back to stock. The Noltec Softride bushings we outlined in Issue 118 of Classic Motorsports didn‘t hold up worth a damn—we would not recommend them.

The last fix we made was on the shift lever. If you remember from Issue 132, we installed a five-speed transmission from a later Datsun 280ZX. To do this without cutting the tunnel, we needed to cut and then graft a small piece of metal to move back the shift lever. After it broke twice, we yanked it out and properly gusseted the shift lever. We anticipate no further problems in this area.